My Research Interests: Physics Far From Equilibrium

Large fluctuations in stochastic non-equilibrium systems, including population dynamics

Clustering, pattern formation and phase separation in granular flows

Phase transition kinetics

Ostwald ripening

Self-similarity and dynamic scaling in physics

Fluid dynamics and plasma theory

Nonlinear oscillations and waves

How long will it take for an isolated population (of molecules, bacteria, animals or even people) to go extinct? Here are
some of our papers -
1
,
2
,
3
,
4
,
5
, - and a non-technical review - 6 - on this kind of problems.

Is there anything in common between a bunch of marbles and an expanding universe? Take a look at
one of our papers on clustering in a freely cooling granular gas.

One fascinating granular phenomenon that we worked
on is granular levitation , when a heavy close-packed
granular cluster is supported from below by a dilute granular gas. Here
is our paper on the
theory and simulations of this system.

You can also watch a Flash Movie 6.0 (1.2 Mb.) of experiment (by I. Aranson et al.) showing Ostwald
ripening far from equilibrium: coarsening of granular clusters in
electrostatically-driven metallic powders. Here is our paper on a
theory of this process.

What is fractal coarsening? It is shape relaxation of
fractal objects by surface tension or another "fractality spoiler". Enjoy a small animation, or a larger-scale movie of
the diffusion-controlled coarsening of a DLA cluster, as seen in
numerical simulations. Here is our pioneering work on this
subject. Why do not this and other related systems show simple dynamic scaling behaviors?
See this paper.

In 2012 I was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Here is the
citation.

My previous research interests

embraced a broad variety of subjects in nonlinear, non-equilirium and statistical physics. Among them was the discovery in 1979
(together with E.A. Oks and P.V. Sasorov) of chaos in highly-excited
(Rydberg) atoms driven by an oscillating electric field.

When I was a student,

two great physicists, Lev Landau and Richard Feynman, were my heroes. Here are
portraits of Lev Landau
and Richard Feynman, painted by Nataly Meerson. Here are some other
paintings of Nataly.